D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[The Firebird]

That is what happened in this example. You came up with a trait on the fly « will not drink alcohol out of religious belief ».

Then, when pushed on a trait, the GM doubles down by creating lore to justify the trait.

Same thing happened in the guard example. We are presuming a sandbox, and the guard is a minor NPC, so the guard did not have the trait « cannot be bribed » until the PC tried to bribe him. Afterwards, to justify the trait, someone posted about weekly Zone of Truth spells to ensure that guards weren’t accepting bribes.

This was not how I understood the example. I thought it was established lore before the players interacted with it. Perhaps I'm wrong?

But, "moving as fast as possible" is flat out not true. So long as the party doesn't tarry too long in any one location (and too long can vary a LOT by location), staying ahead of the hunting party isn't exactly difficult. And, in nearly all of the locations where the party forms relationships with the denizens of hte underdark, the hunters cannot catch them.

True, but iirc there is no way for the party to know this. As the party the game incentivizes you to move as quickly as you can but develops better if you take your time.

I'm failing to see how this is anything other than a perfectly reasonable element of a sandbox campaign. And, considering it's a fairly minor element of the campaign, it would hardly qualify in discounting the entire campaign as no longer being a sandbox.

My Out of the Abyss campaign apparently doesn't count because of reasons.

To be clear--I think your Out of the Abyss campaign is a sandbox. I personally didn't find it enjoyable as a sandbox when I played through it for the reasons I described. But I'm not going to tell you that you can't have fun with it.

 

[AlViking]

It did not appear to be unserious in context. It appeared to be perfectly serious. And the person to whom you were replying was almost surely serious. They were using a string of escalating incentives (which, yes, became quite extreme!) to show the point that on most things--not absolutely everything, but definitely most things--"utterly and eternally unwilling to be persuaded/intimidated no matter what" is ridiculous and inaccurate.

Their whole point was to show you that what you almost certainly actually meant was "unwilling to be persuaded, except by means which the party would find too extreme/evil/difficult to actually do", outside of a small handful of exceptions.

And I'm only beating on this dead horse because people kept, over and over and over and over, pushing back that no, this is totally realistic, how could you possibly think this was in any way weird or problematic? If you meant it unseriously, the thread at large definitely didn't take it that way! It's not JUST me thinking that.

You don't get to tell me what I actually think because I was there. It was unserious as far as I'm concerned.

Also, there are cultures where violating a vow will bring shame on not just you, but on your entire family so taking a drink if they had vowed not to could have very serious social repercussions, extending that to fantasy world repercussions is the GM's call. But like I've stated many, many, times I would never actually use this example but there could be many other reasons someone wouldn't accept a drink from a complete stranger.

It's like the criminal with the gun to the head of an innocent telling the cop to drop their gun. The cop will never, ever drop their gun because then the criminal will just shoot them and the hostage. A stranger says their going to freaking kill me if I don't take a drink? Now I know they're just bonkers and I have no reason to believe they aren't going to kill me anyway. It's just such an extreme, bizarre demand that I can think of no reason for them to do it that doesn't have some other goal that I don't know.

 

[AlViking]

That would be why it is "near-absolute" rather than "absolute."

And it's very^100 easy to say "oh players can just walk away". It isn't nearly that easy at an actual table, with people you know and have connected to. As is almost always the case in these situations, you blithely ignore the social contract when it's inconvenient to you (e.g., the social contract elements about not flipping the table when you're upset, about "going with the flow" rather than kicking up a fuss even when a fuss is totally warranted, etc.) and then completely rely upon it when that's convenient to you.

I've walked away from games more than once, it's as simple as declining the invitation to the next game. As far as the role of the DM in D&D I don't see an issue, any individual at the table can ruing the fun at the table, DM or not.

 

[TwoSix]

Also, also, a trait like this should be extremely rare. All we are arguing for is the right of an NPC trait like this to exist, because NPCs having will is important in a living setting. But you shouldn't be using that to thwart players. If it arises in the course of play and happens to thwart them on occasion, that is fair. But if you are doing it to railroad, that is a problem.

I've said this in other threads on the topic, but I feel like that if you're interested in presenting the "living world" aesthetic, it's actually crucial that the DM will sometimes negate resolution based on pre-determined aspects of the campaign setting.

A "living world" game that is predicated on the belief that the world existed (as a combination of generated notes and DM mental construct) prior to play, and that the NPCs are "functioning" outside the purview of the PCs. (This function is generally a combination of GM-facing algorithms, like encounter tables, but mostly based on a GM's own heuristics.)

Thus, to demonstrate to players that this pre-generated work exists and has weight at the table, the GM must, at times, assert the agency of the pre-determined setting function over the normal procedures of system resolution.

 

[mamba]

A stranger says their going to freaking kill me if I don't take a drink? Now I know they're just bonkers and I have no reason to believe they aren't going to kill me anyway. It's just such an extreme, bizarre demand that I can think of no reason for them to do it that doesn't have some other goal that I don't know.

what if they asked for your money?

Pretty sure I would take the drink, I do not have much to lose in the situation by taking it anyway…

 

[TwoSix]

So, from discussion in this thread are we happy to concede the following are considered sandbox play:

• Hex-Crawl Style sandbox
• Running concurrent modules/APs and/or homebrew content within a sandbox framework
• Story now sandbox (essentially solely player-driven)

Have I missed any?

When a definition of something starts getting overly broad, I generally find it useful to try and define by exclusion. What sort of games are absolutely NOT a sandbox?

Off the top of my head, a one-shot of something like Fiasco or Dread is not a sandbox. Pretty much any CoC game example I can think of is not a sandbox. "We're going to play module X from start to finish and then end the game" would not be a sandbox (unless the module is itself a sandbox).

 

[Hussar]

This was not how I understood the example. I thought it was established lore before the players interacted with it. Perhaps I'm wrong?


True, but iirc there is no way for the party to know this. As the party the game incentivizes you to move as quickly as you can but develops better if you take your time.

Actually, there are a number of ways for the party to know this. There are a number of random encounters with various factions that can tell you how far behind the pursuit is. For example, my group met a small group of drow in the Silken Path (one of the random encounters). The warlock plus the two Deep Gnomes twins (Topsy and Turvy) used their Disguise Self ability to approach the drow and talk to them. They learned that the hunting party was a number of days (I forget the exact number right now) behind them and then the three convinced the drow, who were meeting up with the hunters later, that the party wasn'T in this area, thus buying them a bit more time.

And, since the party went through Sloobludop with its... unfortunate destruction ... they know that the drow certainly can't chase them easily now. Plus, being on the Darklake makes pursuit even more difficult. So, while the party might not know exactly how much time they have, they do have a pretty decent idea of how fast they need to proceed.

Really, the drow hunting party catching them at the end, if you play it that way, makes a certain amount of sense. The drow can't pursue the party directly, but, there are only a limited number of places the party could logically go. So, instead of chasing, they get ahead of the party and wait for them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've said this in other threads on the topic, but I feel like that if you're interested in presenting the "living world" aesthetic, it's actually crucial that the DM will sometimes negate resolution based on pre-determined aspects of the campaign setting.

A "living world" game that is predicated on the belief that the world existed (as a combination of generated notes and DM mental construct) prior to play, and that the NPCs are "functioning" outside the purview of the PCs. (This function is generally a combination of GM-facing algorithms, like encounter tables, but mostly based on a GM's own heuristics.)

Thus, to demonstrate to players that this pre-generated work exists and has weight at the table, the GM must, at times, assert the agency of the pre-determined setting function over the normal procedures of system resolution.

Can you give a concrete example of what you mean

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've walked away from games more than once, it's as simple as declining the invitation to the next game. As far as the role of the DM in D&D I don't see an issue, any individual at the table can ruing the fun at the table, DM or not.

No. It isn't.

Because now you're telling me what I'm allowed to think about something.

It is not as easy as you claim.

 

[AlViking]

what if they asked for your money?

Pretty sure I would take the drink, I do not have much to lose in the situation by taking it anyway…

I would give them my money rather than take a drink, just like I would give a mugger my money if they pulled a weapon on me. Why would a complete stranger come up to me on the street and offer me a drink in the first place? What kind of whack job are they if they tell me that if I don't drink they're going to kill me?

My wife and I have a bad habit of yelling at the TV when people give into "Push the button or we'll kill you and your family" because you know that the dude and his family are dead no matter whether he pushes the button or not. Especially in a world of magic, I have absolutely no idea what's really in the drink.